insight & evidence
Section 36(1)(a) of the Constitution Act, 1982 and the Architecture of Social Obligation By Bernard F. Miller KC, ICD.D*1 AbstractThis article examines whether section 36(1)(a) of the Constitution Act, 1982, which commits Parliament and the provincial legislatures to promoting equal opportunities for the well-being of Canadians, constitutes a genuine constitutional value capable of shaping...
by Peter Nicholson – Canadian Climate Institute: Opening Remarks at 2026 Board Planning Retreat – January 13, 2026 When thinking about the world in which the Canadian Climate Institute will be operating between now and the end of the decade we need to acknowledge, at the outset, that today climate change is not top of the public mind in Canada, or in the United States or in fact in much of the...
By Peter NicholsonA Presentation to the Nova Scotia Offshore Wind R&D Forum; Halifax; September 24, 2025 Good afternoon, and thanks to our organizers, Net-Zero Atlantic, for the opportunity to outline why I believe, passionately but logically, in the nation-building power of Atlantic offshore wind energy. In the two years since publication of a paper for the Public Policy Forum in which I...
Canada’s provincial electricity systems are impressive but to make the country an energy superpower, they must be linked together. By Peter Nicholson and Rick Smith for The Hill Times, July 2, 2025 Faced with unpredictable and disruptive American trade aggression, nation-building projects are urgently needed to strengthen Canada’s economy and turn crisis into opportunity. The federal government’s...
by Peter Nicholson This essay updates a previous update posted June 26, 2025, and a paper of the same title published by the Public Policy Forum in December 2024 ( ). EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Industrial Revolutionary makes the case that today’s unprecedented developments in artificial intelligence (AI) will drive a new era of global innovation and economic growth, comparable to the transformative shifts...
by Peter Nicholson – St. Francis Xavier University Convocation – May 4, 2025 Chancellor Mulroney, President Hakin, faculty, distinguished guests, proud families, and most of all, graduates—thank you for the honour of joining you on this never-to-be-forgotten milestone day. Taking inspiration from the motto of St. FX—Quaecumque Sunt Vera: Whatsoever things are true—I will talk today...
by Peter Nicholson In terms of growth of GDP per capita, Canada’s Maritimes ranks at the bottom among US States and Canadian Provinces. But the story less often told is how much the Maritime Provinces have converged toward the all-Canada average over the long run. The chart below shows that PEI has gone from 46% of the Canadian average GDP per capita in 1960 to 75% in 2016, and likely higher...
by Peter Nicholson Summary: The objective of the paper is to make the case for Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a “General Purpose Technology”—analogous in potential economic impact to revolutionary technologies of the past such as the steam engine, electricity, and the microchip which spawned the industrial revolutions that created the modern world. The theme is the potential of AI to reignite...
by Peter Nicholson The graph below appeared in a recent post on X by Johnatan Pallesen. Although the vertical scale is not explicitly indicated, it is presumably in units appropriate to each of the six variables plotted—e.g., Life expectancy in years from zero to about 100; GDP/capita from zero to about US$70,000. The point is to illustrate the spectacular take-off in the growth of an array of...
by Bernie Miller In May of 1994, Peter Drucker wrote a broad-ranging article for the Atlantic Monthly which he called The Age of Social Transformation weaving together observations which, 26 years later, seem remarkably prescient. One passage is worthy of special note: “The twenty-first century will surely be one of continuing social, economic and political turmoil and challenge, at least in its...
insight & evidence